The Midnight Library book review
Everybody has regrets. And if you could just rewind one decision in your entire life, which one would it be?
I know. I can't think about it either, but let's talk about what this character did.
I'm reviewing The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. The genre is fiction, and the themes are suspense, thriller, and fantasy.
I definitely read this before. Then I watched a movie on Apple TV about a woman who gets to choose who she wants to spend eternity with, I think it's called Eternal, And it made me remember this book.
I read The Midnight Library before I was recording book reviews, so at least four years ago, and I had to pick it up again. I've been thinking about it because stuff has been happening, and I'm just like, "What would I do if that was different? What would I do if that was different?"
So I went and got it again.
In this book, we're following Nora. She gets the chance to go back and experience different versions of her life based on decisions she made.
The first example of rewriting history or redoing a regret is with an engagement that she did not fulfill.
Maybe you haven't been engaged before, maybe you haven't been married or divorced, but most people would say, "That relationship would be better if I met the right person at the wrong time."
Well, Nora gets a chance to be like, "What if I married that person? What would it be?"
He'd be cheating on you.
And then she has to decide, "Well, this is what I thought I wanted. Do I want to keep it?"
Nope.
But you also wanted to be an Arctic explorer and have to chase down polar bears that were trying to kill your team. Would you still want to do that?
And so she goes and does that.
Then it's like, "What if your band really did get popular?" But if your band gets popular, then your brother's not in the band with you.
All of the things change.
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I'm a big fan of letting your life be the way it is.
I would like to say that if I knew all the things I know now, with the whole law degree and a six-year-old, while I was in college, I would have paid more attention in college.
Yeah. But that's the whole point. That's how you experienced it. That's part of life.
There's not one thing that I would redo or undo because I know the trickle effect of it all would completely change and unravel my entire life.
I have a Real Housewives recap podcast with a former coworker of mine. If I didn't get that job and start on May 1, 2023, if they didn't move here from New York, if we weren't in orientation together, if we didn't sit beside each other for fourteen months, everything in my life right now could be completely different.
And that goes to show you, what if you had a boss and you got fired, and you're like, "I wish I never had them."
But who did you meet? Who saw you? Who experienced you? Who did you impact in that job? If you undid that boss and undid all of that, you'd be a completely different person. That's really how I look at my decisions.
A couple of years ago, there may have been a thing or two that I would've wanted to undo. Or a lesson I had to learn too many times that would've been nice not to. But I truly appreciate now, especially after reading The Midnight Library, that there's not one thing you can undo that won't impact everything else in your life.
If I didn't log on to MySpace the day my husband sent me a message saying, "Great smile," would I be living in this house, recording book reviews in the basement with my daughter upstairs running around getting ready for school?
Probably not. Because it all compounds.
"There's not one thing you can undo that won't impact everything else in your life."
It can be overwhelming to think about your own life and all the things you would undo, so it's better to read about other people.
Read about Nora's decisions. Read about her relationship with her brother. Read about all the things she would've done differently with her mom and her dad. It helps you appreciate the life that you have now and all of the things you've discovered, embraced, and encountered because of the decisions you made.
So I would challenge you, don't undo it all. Don't wish that it was different. Good, bad, ugly. Look at it all and say, "This is my life. This is where I am." And embrace it.
The beautiful thing about this writing is that at the end of the book, Nora decides she wants the life she had.
Now she gets to bring with it all the consciousness of having those different experiences. She gets to bring that awareness, rehab her relationship with her brother, and work on some other things in a different way. So for that, it's fiction, and we love that for her.
But the lesson you can take from it is this:
"Let me not regret the life that I have now. How can I improve? How can I get better every single day?"
Have you read The Midnight Library? Did you enjoy it? I really hope someone turns it into a TV show. I mean, Apple TV, this is prime for you guys. This is prime for you guys.
Until the next book review,
Kyla
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